Widthless connector
The wide loose connector ( English zero width joiner , shortly SMY ) is a control character in the computer set . This symbol is used to expressly connect the characters to the left and right of it in a ligature or to display a letter in a representation variant that is otherwise only selected within the word. The counterpart is the widthless non-connector or tie inhibitor that prevents ligatures. This control character has no influence on the line break .
use
The widthless connector is used together with the anti-tie in scripts such as Arabic , in which the characters of a word are linked and thus appear in different glyph variants depending on their position . When displaying Indian scripts in Unicode , the widthless connector can be used to display a dead consonant in the half-form (see inherent vowel ).
Coding
In Unicode , the widthless connector is on code point U + 200D in the Unicode block General Punctuation . In HTML it can be ‍represented as.
Examples
The broad connector can be used to display individual Arabic letters in a form that they otherwise only assume in the word. In order for the representation in the two following tables to be correct, the web browser used must correctly apply the algorithms for the representation of Arabic in Unicode . For comparison, the characters from the Unicode block Arabic presentation forms-B that correspond to the character strings are shown.
| String | presentation | intended representation | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ba | ب | ﺏ | isolated shape |
| ZWJ - Ba | ب | ﺐ | Form at the end of a word |
| Ba - ZWJ | ب | ﺑ | Form at the beginning of the word |
| ZWJ - Ba - ZWJ | ب | ﺒ | Form in the middle of the word |
A combination with the conjunctivitis (ZWNJ) can also be useful:
| String | presentation | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Lam - Alif | لا | Lam and Alif are linked to form the Lām-Alif ligature. |
| Lam - ZWNJ - Alif | لا | The binding inhibitor prevents the ligature, the letters are shown in their isolated form. |
| Lam - ZWJ - ZWNJ - ZWJ - Alif | لا | The additional widthless connectors again force a connected display of the characters, but without a ligature. |
Emojis
The widthless connector can also be used to create a new pictogram from individual emojis , in which the individual symbols are merged into a single one and thus experience a change in meaning.
There is a Lite of ZWJ sequences published by the Unicode Consortium, which is to be supported by software capable of unicode. These sequences are chosen so that with software that does not support the amalgamation of characters, the representation as individual characters still comes close to the desired meaning.
The support of further, non-standardized sequences is allowed.
| Character sequence | Appearance | description |
|---|---|---|
| [Man] [ZWJ] [Woman] [ZWJ] [Boy] | ??? | Family consisting of man, woman and boy |
| [White Flag] [ZWJ] [Rainbow] | ?️? | Rainbow flag |
| [Runner] [emoji Modifier Fitzpatrick Type-6] [ZWJ] [Female characters] [ Variantenselektor -16] | ??♀️ | Dark skinned runner |
| [Woman] [ZWJ] [heart] [variant selector-16] [ZWJ] [woman] | ?❤️? | lesbian lovers |
symbol
A symbol for use on keyboards and in descriptions is standardized in Amendment 1 (2012) to ISO / IEC 9995 -7: 2009 "Information technology - Keyboard layouts for text and office systems - Symbols used to represent functions" as symbol 82, as well as in IEC 60417 "Graphical Symbols for use on Equipment" as symbol IEC 60417-6177-2.
literature
- Julie D. Allen et al .: The Unicode Standard. Version 6.2 - Core Specification. The Unicode Consortium, Mountain View, CA, 2012. ISBN 978-1-936213-07-8 . ( online )